Wishful Casting: Can Young and the Restless and Bold and the Beautiful Play Red Rover?

Okay, anyone who listens to the CBS/Days edition of the Daytime Confidential podcasts realizes what a HUGE fan I am of Heather Tom’s work on Young and the Restless as the "real" Victoria Newman (Am I the only one who got a kick out of ABC’s PR stunt?). Amelia Heinle is a reasonable actress and has a tragic, Jane Eyre-esque beauty about her, but she is miscast as Victoria Newman.

Granted a lot of my gripes about Victoria during Heinle’s time on the show have been storyline-based. I hated seeing the very daughter who was cut from Victor’s aggressive, business first, cloth transform into a whimpering, wilting lily who gave long, boring soliliquies about the importance of art and run down buildings.

It was also painful to watch the 30-something Victoria gushing and gigling and pulling her hair behind her ears whenever JT showed up, like some 12-year-old texting LOL’s on her cellphone. I get that Heinle and Helstrom were falling in love both in real and reel life, but my Victoria didn’t gush and giggle! She looked down her snobby nose at any and everyone she felt was beneath her just like her former pole-twisting Mama Nikki did and she ran one hell of a cosmetics firm, much like her father! THAT’s the Vicki fans want to see and…Bold and the Beautiful has her! Which brings me to my offer to Brad Bell, can Y&R trade you Heinle for Tom (complete with blonde hair thank you very much)?

Y&R fans applaud Bell for rescuing the shamefully discarded stars who have been unceremoniously booted or ran off from his late father’s once unbeatable soap over the years, but now with Y&R in a regrowth period, it would be so nice to see Tom’s Victoria home where she belongs. I admit I am beginning to enjoy her as snarky, bowling league fanatic Katie Logan on B&B, but let’s face it, having this Emmy-winning actress serve as a comedic talk-to, babysitter and shrink for her sisters, niece and their beaux is almost criminal. Tom’s Victoria needs to be back in Genoa City telling Victor Jr. or Adam or whoever the heck he’s calling himself this week just exactly how the cow at the cabbage! Meanwhile, couldn’t Heinle work as Katie? Just a thought.

If you’d like we’ll even encourage Y&R to give you Christian Le Blanc and Tracey Bregman’s Michael and Lauren (This fantasy exec stuff is SO much fun!) This talented pair has been wasted beyond belief as supporting characters in the I Love Gloria and Kevin Show. I am so sick of seeing the maddeningly brilliant LeBlanc basically playing Ricky Ricardo to Gloria’s Lucy.

In LA Michael could go to work for the delightfully dysfunctional Forrester clan as their consigliere. Can you picture Michael acting as a buffer between the horny, hateful Forresters and Logans? It would be like daytime’s version of Dirty, Sexy, Money!
BUT… if we arrange for you to get Michael and Lauren Mr. Bell, you will not only have to give Y&R back Tom, but also Eileen Davidson’s Ashley Abbott. Now, now, don’t be that way! You’re show already has one breathtaking, ageless, ethereal blonde in Katherine Kelly Lang, don’t be a glutton.

Y&R just isn’t the same without Ashley. Jack needs his conscience, especially since Sharon is now going along giddily with his schemes and Victor needs his beautiful "Ashley Abbott" by his side at the Ranch. Wouldn’t that just drive Nikki back to drinking and popping pills?

I am sorry, but that new love interest they have for Victor, what’s her name? Ramona, Desdemona? Whoever she is, she just ain’t cutting it! We need Ashley back pronto, so that Victor and Ashley’s love affair can finally be explored fully. Just think about it Mr. Bell. Have your people call my people. I’m sure we can work something out!

29 Responses

You’ve been itching to write this post about Victoria for a long time haven’t you? As for Michael & Laurne I’m sure glad that is your fantasy on not reality…lol…Michael & Lauren on B&B? If you think they are being wasted on Y&R and that they would get more screentime on B&B you and I aren’t watching the same soap. lol I can’t believe you’d trade three characters for one. lol

ok, now that Tina pointed out that Heather Tom is your Rebecca Budig it makes sense.

I still maintain that the way " If you’d like we’ll even encourage Y&R to give you Christian Le Blanc and Tracey Bregman’s Michael and Lauren" reads that it sounds like you’re willing to trade LeBlanc, Bregman, and Heinle for Tom.

Okay, I was going to stay out of this, but Luke, you’ve gone too far! No Gloria on B&B! I have to put my foot down on this…B&B already has an Over the Top, Scenery Chewing, Honorary Drag Queen (Donna), we don’t need another.

While I ADORE Michael & Lauren, I think they would be better used on Y&R (if they would just write for them properly.)

YES YES YES to HT going back to Y&R as Victoria! But is it mean of me to say that I don’t want AH to be Katie? She just doesn’t do it for me.

I’ve got an idea – Let Amelia Heinle go to GH as Liz’s sister Sarah.

And yes, get Ashley back to Y&R, because she’s being wasted on B&B.

And we need to beef up the younger set on B&B. Get Amber back over there, recast Phoebe w/ Nadia Bjorlin, and get Thomas back! Plus, doesn’t Kristen have an adopted son? Get his butt over there too.

Leave Michael and Lauren on YR!!! They are one of my favourite couples and B&B is only 30mins so I’d never see them. Likey needs their own storyline now! But I do agree Ashely needs to come back to Genoa City I miss her so much. Rebuild the Abbott Family

You so read my mind. You are not the only one out there that thinks Heather Tom is the “real” Victoria. I was a delegate at my district’s Democratic Convention yesterday and she was there campagning for Hillary Clinton. When everyone saw her people around me started screaming “Victoria!”
“Red Beans & Ricely Yours” ~ Louis Armstrong

(WTF – Do you not understand the difference between YOUR and YOU’RE ? )

>>Whoever she is, she just ain’t cutting it
(Whomever… this one is tougher, but still…. )

I bet I could find half a dozen more in this article alone.

Go ahead – slam me for being a “grammar Nazi”. The fact is – you are a content creator on the web, with a large readership. For that reason alone you have a responsibility to get it right, or risk lowering the bar for the entire English language across all media.

PS – I didn’t like Amelia Heinle at first but now I’m kind of into her – especially when I found out her real age, maybe I have a shot after all?

You bet your bippy I’ve been waiting to write this post! LOL And I won’t hear a word about it! Humph!

Just imagine if your precious Rebecca Budig were say on General Hospital being wasted as one of those student nurses. You’d lose your soap-loving mind!

That’s the equivalent of the wonderful Heather Tom keeping score of which Logan Nick bags each week over at B&B.

And Lauren once got plenty of screentime on B&B when she was on before. Much of her legendary feud with Sheila was played out on Y&R’s sister soap. Not to mention the fact that Lauren had spicy flings with both Ridge and Eric while in town.

Sure there isn’t a lot of room on the current canvas, but B&B has had many more characters before and rotated them in and out nicely. It could definitely be done. And I am not trading three characters for one, I am trading two characters (Michael and Lauren) and one actress (Amelia Henlie) for one character (Ashley back on Y&R) and two of Y&R’s most iconic actresses (Davidson and Tom)! Victoria is already in Genoa City…she just isn’t quite herself these days.

Thank you! LOL! Luke thinks its okay to gush over Rebecca ad nauseum, but heaven forbid I show some love for Heather Tom, a multiple Emmy winner who carried the young adult story on the Number One soap Y&R for the better part of a decade!

Who said anything about those three? But yes, Eileen is in definitely in the same category. CBS alleged ponied up $2 million to get her back, then they wasted her, which wasn’t her fault. And Tom is one of the most Emmy-recognized young actresses in her generation.

Oh joy (feigning excitement) just what B&B needs an L.A. version of The Gloria Show! Let’s see, they’d have her marry Eric, kill him off, then send all the Forresters away except Ridge and have Gloria complain about how horrible Ridge is and how Gloria deserves to own Forrester Creations because "Eric wanted her to have it!"

Yeah and in SoapNet’s defense those classic soaps brought absolutely no ratings for the network. The Another World reruns, which I ADORED, didn’t even register a Nielsen point, so they can’t afford to pay millions for shows that only a handful of fans watch.

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